I know I know, I need a hobby

One of the things that I think way too much about is the sort of disposable culture problem that's grown out of advances in industrial and economic progress. We don't make things any more. We don't FIX things any more and it saddens me a bit.

So Friday night (that would be yesterday) I decided to try my hand at making butter. Not a big deal, just get some heavy cream, a smidge of salt, put it in the kitchen-aid and go for a bit, right?

Actually yeah. It's the weirdest thing. I let it go for a bit (20 mintues?) and all of a sudden the sound the thing changed and it was making this weird sloshy noise.

I walked over to it and damned if there wasn't a big wop of butter sitting in a pool of what turns out to be buttermilk (neat! who knew?)

You have to work the butter a bit to get the rest of the water out of it, but that was easily accomplished with a big zip-lock freezer bag. (Kneading butter's not my idea of a good time. Though I have to say I could really see where it would be part of one. >;-)

So now, for two pints of organic heavy cream (I tend towards organic milk products. I'm not an environmentalist. I just think it tastes better enough to pay more.) I have about a pound of butter and two cups of buttermilk, which is rather more than I expected.

I did the math and realized that, not only do I have a better result than store bought. It's an interesting novelty and, get this...

IT'S FUCKING CHEAPER TO MAKE BUTTER YOURSELF THAN IT IS TO BUY IT!

Yes. Even with the "organic" premium compared to plain old non-organic butter. Add in the price of buttermilk (which I use in baking ALL the damn time) and this is just win/win/win.

You're welcome.

I'll amend this post with more details if anyone's interested.